


I Am Sam

by nhpw



Category: Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhpw/pseuds/nhpw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam works up the courage to explore his sexual identity.  In the course of that exploration, he accidentally finds Alan's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am Sam

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telera/gifts).



> This story is NOT PORN, and there is no actual sex in this story. There is absolutely no graphic content. There isn't even much cursing. However, there are realistic conversations about BDSM, power play, D/s roles and an alternate lifestyle. This story contains no kink, but it is ABOUT kink. It's about finding oneself, being truthful to oneself, and knowing that those who truly love you will love you no matter what.
> 
> If it still squicks you, perhaps you'd ought to turn around now. Otherwise, I welcome you to this very personal piece.

I’ve known Alan Bradley my whole life.  I mean, really – he visited the day I was born.  My father told me that.  Alan’s told me that, too.  I used to think I knew everything about him – his favorite color is navy blue, he loves Italian food, he keeps his home thermostat set at 68 degrees all year… But all parents keep secrets from their children, and children are pretty good at secrets themselves, and I guess that’s the kind of relationship Alan and I have, because I never knew about his kink preferences until I worked up the nerve to attend a support group meeting myself.

I had self-identified as a submissive for over a year before I went to my first “First Fridays.”  I mean, I knew about it for months, but I could never find the strength to actually attend.  I was afraid of what I’d find out about myself, I think... Foolish, I know now.  Where better to explore oneself than in the safe company of those who feel the same way?

But as it was, that very first First Friday – the first Friday in August, and one of the warmest nights of the year – I was shaking as I parked my Ducati and turned off the engine, and by the time I reached the door of the bar that hosted the event, my palms were sweating.  Come as you are the Web site said.  The point was that no one should feel ashamed or afraid.  But I was.  Oh, how I was, and I didn’t even know how much I was until I got inside.

The bar wasn’t dark or seedy at all, but instead open and friendly, well-lit and well-decorated.  I remember I paused in the doorway to take it all in because somehow, the setting relaxed me.  It was normal.  It made me feel normal for the first time.

“Can I help you?” the hostess asked, because this place was nice enough that the restaurant inside the bar had a hostess, for fuck’s sake, and I bit my lip, not quite meeting her eyes as I answered.

“I’m, um.  I’m here for… a…”

She giggled lightly and it made a blush creep into my cheeks.  I still remember how hot it burned, and how the sweating of my palms returned.  “The meeting room is down that hall.”  She indicated politely.  “There’s a sign on the door.  This your first time?  I don’t remember seeing you before, and I’m… pretty sure I’d remember your handsome face.”

“I, um.  Yeah.”  I ran a hand through my hair nervously – I think she was checking me out, trying to figure out who – and what – I might be into, but I’ve never really understood the way girls flirt.  “Thanks.”  And I left, because I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea, and hustled down the hall in the direction she’d pointed.  Yes indeed, there was a sign on the door.  First Fridays, 7:00 p.m.

It was 7:06.

I bowed my head and tried to enter as quietly as possible so as not to interrupt the man who was speaking.

“…think it’s important not to punish for mistakes,” he was saying, and even as my face burned with the fire of a thousand suns, someone pulled up an empty chair to the circle and two women parted to make room for me and the chair.  I sat in it as the man continued talking.  “Everyone makes mistakes.  Burned toast, a red sock thrown in with a load of whites, forgetting to shut the windows when it rains… I don’t expect my sub to be perfect.  I expect her to be human, and it’s unreasonable to ask from her things that I’m not capable of myself.”

“I wish my Master felt that way.”  The second speaker was the woman directly to my right, and I found that I had my bearings enough to look at her.  She was looking back at me, all decked out in submissive gear, including a spiked collar with a loop at the end that I knew, somewhere in my mind, was used to attach a leash.

I was wearing a jean jacket and t-shirt, and I felt grossly out of place.

“Then maybe you’re with the wrong Master,” a third voice said.

“Mike—“

“It’s not the first time she’s made a remark like that,” the first man responded defensively.  “Almost every month, there’s some indication she’s not happy.  Look, he doesn’t even come with her here.  That’s not right.”

“People adopt this Lifestyle with all manner of expectations and desires.  What makes a good match is when a Dominant and a submissive expect the same things.  Obviously Kitty needs to work it through herself, but it could be that their expectations are different enough that the relationship isn’t right anymore.”

In the extended pause that followed this statement by a third male speaker, I had two simultaneous thoughts: That this man seemed very knowledgeable and had an excellent point… and that I knew that voice.  I knew it better than I knew most men’s voices.

Alan would tell me later that when our eyes met across the circle that was mostly made of strangers, I looked like a deer caught in blinding headlights, terrified, uncertain of whether to run or let the car hit me head-on.  I don’t remember that.  I don’t remember the sound of my chair clattering to the floor, echoing in my ears as I fled the room.  All I remember is the burning that returned to my cheeks, my face, my chest, my whole body.  I was somehow on fire from embarrassment and numb and deaf from shock at the same time.  It hurt, and it was impossible, and I couldn’t think.  I couldn’t breathe.  I needed to go somewhere far away, lock the door and throw away the key.  At the very least, I needed to leave this bar and never come back.

But a hand fell on my shoulder as I revved the Ducati’s engine and fumbled to fasten the chinstrap of my helmet, and I couldn’t help but look up, even though I think I knew who was going to be standing there.

He turned the key in the ignition to the ‘off’ position and put his hand on the handlebars, and the way he looked down at me was the same way he always looked at me, with that gentle, patient, slightly sad Alan smile of his.  Nothing about him had changed.

Except… I felt like everything had changed.  Alan wasn’t Alan anymore.

“I’ve always kind of wondered,” he said softly.

I hadn’t wondered, because I didn’t think that way about Alan.  He was a middle-aged man who was as close to being my father as, well, as my father.  And kids don’t wonder those things about their parents.  They just don’t.  Furthermore, if they learn them, they tend to be disgusted.

I wasn’t.  I don’t remember how I felt that night about Alan and his kink.  I just knew how terribly horrified I was that he knew about mine.

“Come back inside, Sam.  They’re really a very good group, and I think… you’ll benefit from their company.  Please.”  His voice never rose above a conversational tone, but it swelled with emotion.  He was pleading with me, and he’d later confess it wasn’t because he wanted so badly for me to go back into that meeting, but instead because he was afraid if I got away, I’d never speak to him again.

I ducked my head and took a keen interest in the dials on my bike.  “I can’t.  They probably think I’m just some dumb kid.”

Alan chuckled under his breath and said nothing more.  He was quiet for so long that I finally looked up at him, unsure if he had gone back inside or was waiting for me to speak or what.  But he was just standing there, just Alan, his hands in the pockets of his trousers and his head tipped up to study the starless sky above.  “What did you think?”

“About what?”

“About what you heard.  What Kitty said, what the others said.”

I shrugged.  I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth – about how much I’d agreed with his statement in the millisecond before I recognized his voice.  After a minute or so of silence, he sighed.

“Sam.”  He shook his head, kicked at the dirt.  “Neither one of us can un-know what we know now.”

“Yeah.”

“And I don’t want this to drive a wedge between us.”

“Sure.”

He paused again for a long time, maybe waiting for me to say more, maybe trying to decide what to say next.  Finally he looked directly at me and asked, “Boys or girls?”

“What?”  I’m sure the look I gave him was as incredulous as if he’d caught me with a box of condoms, but it was a fairly perfect question.  It at least served to snap me out of my haze, and it brought a laugh from Alan.

“Top or bottom?  Are you with someone?”

“Alan, this is… this is… for fuck’s sake.”  But for some reason I’ll never understand, I was laughing then, just quietly in my chest but laughing at Alan’s direct questioning.  I didn’t answer, but it did break the tension enough that I didn’t blush when he offered his own reply.

“For me, it’s women.  Younger women, usually.  I’m a Dominant.  And your Aunt Lora wasn’t… she didn’t… it’s the main reason we got divorced.  And that’s all I’ll say in detail,” he finished quickly, holding up one palm to me in surrender.  “Because you don’t want to hear about what goes on in my bedroom any more than I want to hear about what happens in yours.  But I want you to promise me that whatever you’re doing, you’re being safe about it.”

I cleared my throat, and I think I felt like I owed him an answer at that point – at least a little.  “Boys,” I whispered hoarsely.  “And I’m, um.  I’m not with anyone right now, but I’m a sub.  I think.  I feel it.  I… Goddamn, Alan, I feel like such a fool.”

“Don’t.”  He said that with some authority, like it was an order, and I sort of took it as one.  Alan Bradley, fucking Alan Bradley who’d taught me how to throw a change-up pitch, was the first person to tell me not to be embarrassed about being a sub. He was the first person, and in that moment outside that bar he was the only person on Earth, who knew everything about me, all of my deepest, darkest secrets, all of my slights and imperfections, and still told me not to be ashamed to be who I am.

So I went back inside.

We went back inside.

I didn’t talk at all that first night, but I listened, and I came away with a lot of new ideas.  I came away with less of an empty pit inside of me.  I came away knowing that there were people in the world who felt and thought and loved like me… that I was loveable just the way I was.

It makes things easier that Alan likes women and I'm looking for a male Dom.  It means there's no attraction between us, that we’ll never be tempted to just see if it would work.  Instead, we have coffee.  We have coffee on Saturday mornings, sometimes at his house, sometimes at a little café downtown.  We sip slowly and talk about life and things.  We don’t talk about our romantic lives, except that he wants to know if I’m dating anyone I met at First Fridays.

Alan makes me feel normal.  Alan takes me for who and what I am, and he doesn’t try to change me.  He won’t, not ever, and I know that because I’ve asked.

“Who am I?  What am I?”

It was three months after that fateful First Friday meeting – and I went every first Friday of the month to that bar, and every month I felt more comfortable, and I’d even spoken up a couple of times.  But it was a chilly night in November in the middle of the week and the middle of the month, with no First Friday for weeks and no coffee with Alan, and I’d gotten my heart broken by a lover who’d called me a freak.

I’d gone to him then, to Alan, for comfort, and he’d shhhh’d me just like when I was a kid.  “Am I a freak, Alan?  Who am I?  What am I?”

And he’d shrugged in that Alan way of his and said gently, “You’re Sam Flynn.  You’re the same person you’ve always been.”

I am Sam.

It’s a difficult thing, to not know how the world will pull me in or push me out once they learn what lies at the root of me.  But I’m glad Alan convinced me to stay that first night in August.  I’m glad I keep going back.  I’m glad we keep meeting for coffee.  I’m glad he’s a Dom and that he understands me, and I think I’m glad he’s not my Dom.  It could only complicate things.

This is better.  With each passing day, it gets better.  With each passing day, I become more comfortable with being Sam.

With each passing day, I become more comfortable being me.    

 

**Author's Note:**

> For my dear friend telera, for her continued support and encouragement, and for helping me feel brave enough to post this piece for public consumption. Thank you.


End file.
